Thank you for your concern. Here at Covidien, we maintain our long-standing view that robotic surgery, while beneficial in some cases, is a fad and not a threat to our core business. Sure, daVinci has all but wiped out our GYN vessel sealing business, but that was all luck and marketing hype. GYN surgeons are soft and impressionable. Stapling is safe. Real surgeons will never switch to a two-row load, that would go against everything WE have taught them about endomechanical stapling. It just wouldn't make sense.
Existing clinical evidence shows no patient benefit vs. laparoscopy, costs are through the roof and insurers are catching on to the scam. It's only a matter of time before our customers turn their back on the hundreds of millions of dollars they have invested in existing daVinci systems. Yep, any day now the jig will be up. Just you wait, it's gonna be awesome. ISRG is gonna be a penny stock. In the meantime, just repeat after me: Stapling is safe. Stapling is safe. Stapling is safe....